


Chasing the sun

by historymiss



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain Marvel but make it spiteful and lesbian, F/F, Spot the Runaways reference, and the Beta Ray Bill reference, god i'm such a nerd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-01-12 06:53:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18441323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: Minn-erva watches Vers howl her way atonally through another Shi’ar war dirge and wonders how it would feel to have the sun under her fingers.(Or, Minn-erva and Carol Should Have Hatesex, A Humble Proposal)





	1. Chapter 1

She was there when Yonn-rogg brought the human in. The medbay in the ship had filled with the rich stink of her blood, and Minn-erva had never seen a red so deep before. Like a living thing. The human had moaned and arched her back as the transfusion burned into her veins, gold fire leaking from under her eyelids the exact colour of her hair.

“Do they all do that?”

Yonn-Rogg hadn’t had time for jokes. He was too intent on Vers, though if she’d died there on the table it would have saved a lot of trouble, in the end.

Minn-erva draws closer, anyway, and watches as the human clenches her fists and struggles like a warrior for life.

————  
Humans are... weird. Vers believes she’s Kree, of course, but some things can’t be washed out by blood. She’s a brimming cauldron of emotion, courage and defiance and anger all at the same time.

It’s kind of amazing how angry Vers can get. Like the banked charge of energy in her fists, it crackles the air around it. Minn-erva likes to draw it out of her, slowly but surely, watching that wide-open face shift and set, hard, in disappointment. 

Vers keeps trying, though. There’s a raw end in her, a severed connection that’s casting out for something, anything to hold on to.

Minn-erva finds she doesn’t really want her to stop.

—————

They hang out exactly once. It’s as part of the team, after a training session, so to Minn-erva’s eyes it doesn’t really count. Vers picks the bar, some Majesdanian dive with multicoloured neon that hurt the brain if you stared at it too long.

Vers sits next to her. She’s a _presence,_ even after what Yonn-Rogg and the Supreme Intelligence have done to her. Her voice is too loud, she gestures too much, she stares at everything like it’s a theme park just for her, and Minn-erva can feel the heat of her, like a black hole rimmed in golden light, and she can’t stop watching her _fucking_ mouth. 

They have a jukebox.

Of course they have a jukebox. It’s why she picked it.

_Humans_

Minn-erva watches Vers howl her way atonally through another Shi’ar war dirge and wonders how it would feel to have the sun under her fingers.

———-

She pulls herself out of the wreck eventually, though it takes every last scrap of energy she has. When Minn-erva hobbles to the road, she knows she’s borrowing against the future at a rate that may be too high to pay.

Minn-erva finds Vers eventually, though. So maybe it’s worth it. A hut on the edge of a forest, so human it would make her laugh, if laughing didn’t hurt like a bitch right now.

When Vers answers the door she looks... surprised. A little sad. Like she’s going to take her former squad mate bleeding to death on her porch personally or something.

Stars, just like Vers to make it all about her.

“I fucking hate you, Vers.” Blood dribbles blue down her chin, and the acrid taste of it seems to add poison to her words. 

Carol shrugs and stands aside to let Minn-erva in.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Make it quick." Minn-erva is under no illusions as to what will happen next. She tried to kill Vers' allies, fought against her bleeding-heart attempt to liberate the Kree, lied to her for years. Yon-Rogg is likely dead, his stupid fixation with Vers having reached its logical conclusion (obvious to everyone except him, and why the fuck is everyone always so obsessed with this woman?) and if the rest of the squad aren't, then they're far away from here. Minn-Erva stills her breathing, as her mothers taught her, and wishes that she could have seen the stars one last time.
> 
> "I'm not going to kill you, Minn-Erva."
> 
> (I couldn't stop thinking about this fic and this pairing so..... here's chapter 2)

Minn-erva doesn't remember passing out, but in the interval between walking into the cabin and opening her eyes, somehow she's gotten horizontal. The space behind her eyes is nothing: a warm, velvety black that splits with pain when she comes to. Minn-erva groans. The fact that Vers probably had to catch her when she fell is somehow more painful than the feeling of her bones already re-aligning, her blood singing with the emergency drugs her suit is pumping through her body to speed her healing.

At least Vers had remembered to keep the suit on. Minn-erva finds she is both disappointed and relieved by this. 

Slitting her eyes against the searing light overhead, Minn-erva takes in the cabin's interior. Bare walls, planks grained with swirls suggesting organic material and primitive techniques. Faded furniture, obviously not intended for the space. Somewhere, someone is moving around, making something that stings the air with bitterness and the smell of burned leaves. Stars, this shithole is worse than she remembers. Carefully, Minn-erva lifts her wrist and tries to activate her beacon. 

Nothing happens.

Frowning, she stabs at it again, harder this time, sending a flare of pain down her arm and into her ribs. Nothing again- no Yonn-Rogg, no Starforce, not even Ronan the Starfucking Accuser. 

She groans again, letting her wrist, and its communicator, fall. It is the only appropriate response to finding oneself stranded on C-53. 

"You're not dead." 

Vers, of course, chooses this moment to enter. She's carrying a mug, steam curling from the top and the burnt smell from before emanating from it. Minn-erva closes her eyes again and consciously relaxing her fingers. Vers has already seen her bleed. No need to give her any more than that.

"Not yet." She feels rather than hears Vers sit down next to the bed, the exhale as she settles.

"Make it quick." Minn-erva is under no illusions as to what will happen next. She tried to kill Vers' allies, fought against her bleeding-heart attempt to liberate the Kree, lied to her for years. Yon-Rogg is likely dead, his stupid fixation with Vers having reached its logical conclusion (obvious to everyone except him, and why the fuck is everyone always so obsessed with this woman?) and if the rest of the squad aren't, then they're far away from here. Minn-Erva stills her breathing, as her mothers taught her, and wishes that she could have seen the stars one last time.

"I'm not going to kill you, Minn-Erva." Vers sounds weary, a little sad. Her fingernail taps against the ceramic of her mug. Minn-Erva's lip curls, her eyes opening again.

"You killed for Yonn-Rogg." She can't help it, that cut. Blame it on the drugs and the exhaustion, the same way she's blaming them for the way her gaze drifts down, naturally, to Vers' lips as she licks them, slow and deliberate, as other woman tries to repress the anger that hums in the air around her. "Killed again and again, just like me. All we had to do was point you at them-"

"I said I'm not going to kill you." Vers says sharply. "Don't push your luck."

The sneer doesn't go away. "So am I your pet? Like the skrulls?"

Vers laughs humourlessly, shifts in her seat to hide her discomfort. "I don't- That's not what I'm doing here." She looks Minn-erva in the eyes, finally, and her voice softens, just a shade. "Is it so impossible to believe I just want to help you?"

"Yes." Minn-erva says flatly, but she doesn't break Vers' eye contact. There's a clearness to her gaze that wasn't there before, she can tell now. Something behind her eyes has changed. Come into focus. "You killed Yonn-Rogg."

A nod. Slow, and without a trace of regret. Despite herself, Minn-erva respects her for that. Vers has never been in the habit of lying to her, and, even after everything, it seems she still isn't. Minn-erva exhales, and looks down at herself. She's lying on some kind of bed, pillowed in a thick quitlike blanket that has a pattern of bright, rounded creatures on it. They look a little like Korbinites, but friendlier. She tries to get up, and finds that she can't. This is not unexpected.

"Detention lock?" Minn-erva turns her head to Vers, who nods again. It's standard practice for captains of Starforce to be able to do this to their squadmates, but only as a last resport, and only in cases of treason. So she's promoted herself. Interesting.

"I couldn't be sure you wouldn't try to fight me." She sips her coffee. "Figured your pride wouldn't take another ass kicking."

Oh, there it is. There's Vers. And Minn-erva finds herself smiling, her teeth bared. All things considered, she can take a few days to rest up. And if Vers trusts her, well, it'll be easier to escape. Eventually. 

"Take off the lock and we'll see whose pride gets hurt, Vers."

"It's Carol." The human corrects gently, but she sips again, and Minn-erva can see her cheeks move in a smile to mirror her own. "Rest up, M. I'll get you some soup."

Minn-erva watches her retreat back into the rest of the cabin and finds herself, against all the odds, satisfied.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minn-erva looks away, unable to meet Vers’ eyes. She knows she should run, but she should never have come here in the first place. Wherever she and Vers are now, it’s off the map, and neither of them seem keen to leave.

The next day, Minn-erva wakes to raised voices outside the door, Vers (of course) and another woman, human and angry- those two things seem to be synonymous.

“And when were you planning on telling Fury about your new housemate, Carol?”

“It’s more complicated than that, Maria-“

“She tried to _kill me_ , how much simpler can you get?”

Oh, so it’s her. The one who flew like a Kree huntress and shot her out of the sky. Minn-erva rolls her eyes. _She_ isn’t holding a grudge about their fight, and Maria was far more successful than she was. 

Anyway, Maria’s still talking. “She is an enemy combatant, Carol, and there are _rules_ about this.” 

“I know, and I’m sorry, but Minn-erva came to me for help and I can’t just leave her with him to rot in jail or- or worse, okay? You know she won’t stay in Fury’s hands forever.”

A long, pregnant silence. Apparently Vers was listening when the crew talked planetary politics. Or maybe she just isn’t keen to hand her trust over to a Supreme Intelligence again. 

“Keep me out of this.” The words aren’t cold, exactly, but they are final as a knife, hard and sharp, and they draw a quick breath from Vers.

“Maria, please-“

Minn-erva begins to understand, a little, who Vers was looking for when she was asking Starforce to follow her to dive bars and karaoke joints. She files this info away.

No answer. Just footsteps. After a few minutes, the door opens.

Vers looks tired. She always does, these days. Minn-erva has shut her eyes, giving Vers the dignity of pretending she’s asleep.

“God.” 

The whisper is almost too faint to hear. Minn-erva squints an eye open and sees Vers leaning up against the door, face in her hand.

“I know you’re awake, M.” It’s slightly muffled, but intelligible. Minn-erva shrugs as much as she’s able and opens her eyes.

“She’s right.” 

“Fuck you.” Vers doesn’t put any inflection on it. Minn-erva sighs and studies the ceiling. There’s a crack there that’s almost the shape of the Hunting Spire from her homeworld.

“You should turn me over to Fury. Or kill me. It’s what the Kree would have done to you.”

_“I’m. Not. Kree.”_ Vers forces the words between her teeth, looking up with eyes as bright and dangerous as stars. Minn-erva can feel the heat in the room rising, even through her suit.

“Really? What colour do you bleed, Vers?”

The other woman gazes at her just a second too long. There’s an uncomfortable, charged energy in that stare, something only just banked and still smouldering.

Minn-erva badly wants to know what it is.

Vers sets her jaw and brings up the holographic display on her wrist, flicking a few glyphs. Minn-erva feels the lock on her suit release, limbs relaxing fully for the first time in days. This is... unexpected. It’s dramatic. It is in many ways a classic Vers move.

“Carol.” The name is spat the same way her declaration of humanity was, as if the anger can make up for the insecurity nested in its heart. Minn-erva sits up and stretches, feeling her muscles complain. 

Vers points at the door.

“Go, then. Run. I won’t follow- you came to me, remember?”

She steps forward and Minn-erva’s muscles tense to mirror hers- a battle stance, or so she tells herself. Vers’ eyes burn. “I’m not turning you in, Minn- erva. I’m not going to- to do that to someone else, okay?” 

(She doesn’t need to ask what ‘that’ is: instead, Minn-erva re-evaluates what C-53’s little planetary force is capable of)

Her voice goes quiet, heavy with something unfamiliar and jagged. “I’m not going to do that to you.” 

Minn-erva looks away, unable to meet Vers’ eyes. She knows she should run, but she should never have come here in the first place. Wherever she and Vers are now, it’s off the map, and neither of them seem keen to leave. So. Instead, she stretches again, tilts her head as if the other woman hasn’t spoken.

“I’m filthy. It seems unlikely, but does C-53 have any kind of hygiene station?”

Minn-erva pauses and then, awkwardly, borne of the same impulse that brought her to the cabin in the first place: “Ka-rol?”

“It’s Carol.” The other woman doesn’t smile, but the energy eases from anger to something Minn-erva can only call ‘exhausted suspicion’. 

“Follow me.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, finally, there is kissing.

Despite her misgivings about humans in general and those on C-53 in particular, showers are heavenly. They still use water, a rare luxury in the interstellar-capable species, and Minn-erva spends entirely too long soaking her battered limbs in the steamy heat. It’s long enough to run her suit through a cleaning cycle, too, finally ridding it of the smoke and stink of battle.

“You’re out of cleanse gel.” She tosses the plastic container at Vers, who’s made herself another cup of burning leaves while waiting for Minn-erva to get out of the shower. The bottle incinerates in mid-air, leaving a brief, sharp tang of melted plastic. Minn-erva raises an eyebrow, but Vers sips innocently and holds out a brightly coloured bag.

“You can’t wear the suit all the time. These are probably roughly your size.”

Raising her eyebrows, Minn-erva takes the bag and looks through it. There’s a pair of pants made of heavy blue fabric, ripped at the knees, a short tunic with human writing on it, some kind of soft, checked jacket thing, and other items Minn-erva assumes are undergarments. These, she fishes out and tosses back to Vers.

“I’m not wearing that harness. It looks barbaric.”

Vers shrugs. “Just the outer stuff is fine. I can’t do anything about you being, you know, blue, but Earth clothes should help a little if anyone happens to look through the window.”

Minn-erva retreats back to the bathroom, collapsing the suit back into its dormant mode on her wrist as she does so. She’s stripped off in front of Vers before- the Starforce shared a locker room, and Kree military training doesn’t really allow for a lot of modesty, but that nakedness was mutual. Minn-erva has no wish to strip with Vers simply observing. 

(It turns out to be a good way of saving her pride, too. There’s no dignified way to wiggle into those pants)

When she re-emerges, Vers looks at her appraisingly. Minn-erva doesn’t like it, this close scrutiny, and she folds her arms.

“What?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so… “ Vers waves her hand, her vocabulary apparently exhausted. “Human.”

Minn-erva snorts and Vers backtracks hastily.

“I mean, casual. Not ready to murder anyone.”

She doesn’t laugh, exactly, but Minn-erva takes the seat opposite Vers and leans forward, arms still folded.

“Maybe I’m lulling you into a false sense of security.”

“Are you?”

Minn-erva has been a sniper since her mother placed her first gun into her hands at age seven, the thin black rings tattooed on her fingers a testament to her ability to wait, breathing slow and steady, for the perfect moment. 

The air in the cabin goes still, waiting for her to confess what they both already know.

“No.”

Vers bites her lip, the hint of tongue between her teeth shockingly pink. Minn-erva just has the time to note the flash of wet, slick colour before the human leans forward, closing the space between them with a kiss.

It’s not gentle. Of course it isn’t. Theirs isn’t the kind of relationship built on gentleness. Instead, Carol grabs at Minn-erva’s shoulder to bring her closer- misses, once, then grasps her firmly, and Minn-erva reciprocates in kind, leveraging herself further into Carol’s space and pushing her mouth hard against the other woman’s, forcing her tongue between Carol’s teeth. The human’s skin is feverishly warm under her lips, and close to, Minn-erva can smell the dry-dust-heat of Carol’s building power yet again. 

The kiss lasts just a few moments before Carol pulls back, ruffled, her eyes faintly luminous.

“I-” she wipes her thumb over her lower lip, as if she wants to scrub the embarrassment from her skin. Minn-erva licks her own lips, the salty, animal taste of the human on her tongue. “I didn’t-” She tilts her head. “You-?”

“I said I didn’t like you, Ka-rol.” Minn-erva gets up, trailing her finger over the edge of the table and up Carol’s arm to her shoulder, leaning close into her ear. 

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to fuck you.”


End file.
